This leap in my knitting career has been brought about by my true loathing of the Fair Isle Tank Top that I have been doing for college. This was a huge project that I would never wear and would take forever. I decided that what I needed to do was find a nice small pattern that I could knock up quickly and get the thing over and done with. I have spent DAYS looking at Ravelry patterns and could not find anything that fit my requirements i.e. DK wool, small, free, not hugely patterned, not too simply patterned. I know I was probably being overly fussy but I just could not find anything I wanted to make. Then I remembered a messenger bag that I had as a teenager. It was made in cotton but it was fair isle. I loved that bag so much it eventually died a slow and lingering death. This bag inspired me. I decided that "surely it's not THAT hard to make a bag pattern". I don't know if it is too hard or not yet, but I can tell you that so far it is going well.
I started off designing the pattern using a cross stitch design program. This enabled me to create a fair isle pattern that struck a balance between complexity and simplicity that suited me. It was designed with the wool, that I had already bought, in mind and I feel it works well with these colours.
This is what I have knit so far. I decided to knit in the round and this has made a huge difference in my knitting. The stitches are not all compressed together and I can see what I am knitting. The floats are much looser than previous attempts at fair isle and the speed I am knitting is much quicker. I have also used stitch markers at each repeat of the pattern, so when I get distracted I can easily find my place again. This has eased my progress quite significantly.
As this project progresses I am going to keep track of what I am doing and try and write up the pattern. I don't think anyone will want to use it, but I think creating a pattern will be a very valuable exercise.
In addition to this fair isle project, I am trying to crack on with Christmas presents. I will post the presents after Christmas as I don't want to spoil any surprises!
This pattern is really nice, Chrissy! Well done. I can't wait to see the finished project!
ReplyDeleteRegards
BettyKnitter